The Nikkei 225’s highest closing value before Japan’s 1989–90 market crash was 38,915.87.
The index reached that record close on 29 December 1989, at the height of Japan’s asset-price bubble. Rapid credit growth, soaring land prices and strong optimism pushed Japanese equities to extraordinary valuations. The bubble had been encouraged by financial conditions and expectations of continued economic expansion, but those expectations eventually reversed.
The Nikkei then fell sharply during 1990 as the Bank of Japan tightened policy and asset prices weakened. The decline became part of Japan’s prolonged economic stagnation, often associated with the “lost decades.” The 1989 record was not surpassed until 2021, illustrating how long the aftermath lasted. This figure is a closing value, not the index’s intraday high; the distinction matters because an intraday peak and a closing record are different measurements.